No One Liked When Businessweek Thought It Was Maxim

Bloomberg Businessweek has been getting high marks as of late for being funny, smart, and witty. However, this past weekend all that went missing when it asked where the hottest girls go to business school. The article (if you can call it that) recapped the results of a online poll asking readers "Which business school has the most attractive female students?" Seriously, we're not even joking. It's since been taken down, but here's a cached version of the page:

As for an explanation why this thing even exists, The Daily Dot's Aja Romano explains that the magazine has a partnership with a site called College Prowler which provides college campus hotness rankings (of males too). "Though this poll was not actually affiliated with BW’s annual collaboration with the Prowler, tweets and comments suggest that it probably would have also had a 'hot guys' component if it had survived that long," writes Romano. "It’s likely that had Businessweek not chosen to make this poll specifically about hot women, the ranking would have continued to fly under the radar even though the 'college life' angle has always been a disingenuous one."

Another reason this didn't fly under the radar was because it promoted like this:

Understandably, the poll was met with many and completely reasonable kinds of freakouts and scoldings

You're Too Smart For This Businessweek...

...But Let's Not Forget That This Whole Thing Is Sexist to Begin With:

And, Well, This:

The reason that people were so mad is because people actually really like Businessweek. While Maximand Playboy run this kind of garbage, Businessweek isn't a lad mag. It's supposed to be smarter than that. That's what all those awards mean. And something this smart should know sexism when it prints it. However, there's no mention of that "s" word in Businessweek'sapology (via the Daily Dot):

We regret issuing two online polls last week that asked our readers to comment on which business schools had the most attractive male and female students. The Face/Off polls have been taken down from businessweek.com. They were in poor taste and undermine the tremendous value our Business Schools vertical provides.

And it's all sort of sad: sad that some magazines have become an incorrigible place for polls like this and we only hold the smart ones accountable.

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